Felt abit sorry Javier had a struggle. Enjoyable skater but don't think he is yet the class of Hanyu, Takahashi, and Chan. Loved both Takahashi and Hanyu even with the mistakes. Takahashi always skates with his heart and expresses the music so well. Such a mature skater. Hanyu is exciting and just floats and goes all out. Not quite the artistry of Chan and Takahashi in maturity but love all three of them. Will be quite a competition with them all. Hanyu ended with 261.03 and Patrick at cor 262.35. My gosh how close they can be. Hanyu with his amazing short and Patrick with his free. Cannot forget about Takahashi though, he really grabs you.

While Daisuke and Yuzuru are at the top of my list I just don't like their Free Skates this season. They were so awesome last season, both of them and now it just falls short. Oh well, I just tell myself that this is the lacklustre pre-Olympic season....at least I hope it is, program-wise.

That is what I tell myself too...hopefully this means their programs will be great next year!

Plus there is that twisted horrible side of me that secretly hopes Daisuke will continue to not win and get marked lower on PCS so that he will see the error of his ways and will dump Morozov, plus go back to David Wilson and/or Pasquale Camerlengo for some real choreography for the Olympic season.

Hanyu won the TES. Whoever you think should have won was already behind in the TES department.

I'm really happy for Yuzuru. That mistake on the spin was really weird, but it was much better than SA. Last year he got better with his FS over time too, the first really good version of it was at GPF. So let's see what he does in 2 weeks

I don't speak about his TES. He is overscored in PCS. The fact that he slows down so much in the second half of his program and he drags the program to the end should be reflected a lot more.

That is what I tell myself too...hopefully this means their programs will be great next year!

Plus there is that twisted horrible side of me that secretly hopes Daisuke will continue to not win and get marked lower on PCS so that he will see the error of his ways and will dump Morozov, plus go back to David Wilson and/or Pasquale Camerlengo for some real choreography for the Olympic season.

Hanyu-- lots of -GOE...but he also got big + GOE including 2.00 for his 3A-3T, 1.3 for his 3F. That spin went down to level one and got major -GOE. Also got -GOE on the 4S, the 3Z-2T (scratcy landings) and the 3Z that he fell on.

Takahashi - UR + negative GOE on the second 4T (w/ the 2T combo), -GOE on the 3A SEQ. otherwise postive +GOE on everything else, though not as high as we've seen from him in the past.

Miner - Only negative GOE on the 3F due to an edge call. His 4S got a nice +1.29 in GOE.

Richard -- Well hey, he finished 4th in the FS! Besides the -GOE from the fall on the 4T, he got postive GOE on everything else though not huge GOE (nothing above 1 point)

That is what I tell myself too...hopefully this means their programs will be great next year!

Plus there is that twisted horrible side of me that secretly hopes Daisuke will continue to not win and get marked lower on PCS so that he will see the error of his ways and will dump Morozov, plus go back to David Wilson and/or Pasquale Camerlengo for some real choreography for the Olympic season.

Can anyone enlighten me about why Dai T went back to Morozov. I can't put into words my respect, admiration and appreciation for Dai's skating on an artistic level. But I don't feel like Morozov's programs bring out the nuances of his skating that show him to the best advantage. I love Golden Skate forums because there are many well informed, multilingual posters here. I am hoping someone has read or seen an interview with Takahashi that illuminates his choices for this season.

I agree. With the music dragging on and his lack of stamina, poor Yuzuru looked like he was grinding through concrete instead of skating through ice by the program's end.

I agree. The way Hanyu looked is due to 1) lack of stamina, 2) lack of connection to music, 3) poor posture & SS. In consequence, in between elements he just didn't look like anything to write home about. He needs John Curry to have taught him skating before learning to jump.

When I saw Dai at JO I thought his Pagliacci was a masterpiece and that Leoncavallo would have cried watching him skate it like that and wondered what the Italian commentators would say at GPs. Since then I have seen it twice and it's as though it were a different programme skated by a different skater.

That is what I tell myself too...hopefully this means their programs will be great next year!

Plus there is that twisted horrible side of me that secretly hopes Daisuke will continue to not win and get marked lower on PCS so that he will see the error of his ways and will dump Morozov, plus go back to David Wilson and/or Pasquale Camerlengo for some real choreography for the Olympic season.

While I never will wish bad results on Daisuke, just because I love him so much, a little part of me agrees with that. And I wonder why Morozov cannot create a better program...Swan Lake SP is one of my personal Dai favourites and that's Morozov-work. It hurts so much because Daisuke has so much potential to create something amazing, but this Free is just.....I don't really think Daisuke will win any gold with it.

He should not have won the FS with that performance. Thumbs dwn for the judges....

Originally Posted by lavender

He certainly should have lost the long program.

Come on guys! Look at it with a brighter smile: Chan has the company. Now he is not the only one who can polishes the ice with his butt more than once and still ends up with the gold around his neck . The term "Yuzuflation" that I introduced in another thread is now official . I am partly surprised that it took so much time to come up with the response on Chanflation, but it was eventual, sooner or later it should have happened anyway. Russians are as always late with harnessing horses but you know they drive fast.

People here already wrote everything that I wanted to say about Yuzu's skating. He was horribly tired somewhere after the second jump, skating through music with no connection, it was painful to watch his stsg and still he got high GOE for that, etc. I especially laugh at those comments that say that Hanyu was better than at SA. Really, people? SA was a shameful disaster for the skater of such class. And you are happy that he is better than that. Great. Notice at the audience reaction when his score showed up, even in his home town.

I liked how Dai dealt with all this stuff (of course, he is so experienced in it ). He looked so happy after his second quad and then when he finished his prog, as if it didn't really matter much what he will get at the end. Good to see him so relaxed. I hope other stuff they will fix too by major events.

Javi was sick? Yesterday he was wearing foundation on his face, a day earlier he wasn't and it was seen that he had big shadows around his eyes. I like his FS much better than his SP. He should kich it off one day!

NHK showed Dice with some medical support for his shouldert. Odaijini, Man! We want to see you at Nationals!

Mrs. P, Voronov doesn't have a lutz, that's why he doesn't put it in his prog.

Exctly. Both Javier and Yuzuru were a lot overscored in PCS, like a carry over of their SP impression.

Eh...Don't know if I agree with that... in terms of PCS, Yuzuru scored less here than at SA (which was much worse), and was over 4 points back of Dai, who skated an okay but not great program. That doesn't seem too out of left field for me at least.

Grats to all the medalists! Hope Javier doesn't beat himself up too much over this; I thought for a moment that there were problems with his boot after that first fall.